So with my gaming group in Argentina we play historicals but of course also Fantasy. Traditionally we have played the famous rules about the “blunt instrument for war” but we never stopped playing 3rd edition. Even more we had heavily modified the rules to be more of a “wargame”, simultaneous movement etc…
This year we finally decided to take the next step forward and convert the armies into FOG, why not we love the rules and it should be fun.
So I came to the forum and went to the yahoo group and copied many of the ideas you guys have been talking about.
Here is our first AAR with a pretty big battle, two 800 points army per side, on one side (mm lets start making names here so as not to get anyone upset ), mmm, Noble Elves allied to Humans of the Imperium against an unholy alliance of the forces of Undeath with the vengeful Tenebrous Elves.
When converting the armies we tried staying within the principles of FoG as much as possible but undeniably we had to stray every now and then to retain some of the flavor sought after by our fantasy war gamers.
Eventually when I have a PDF with our full conversions I will post them but just to bring up some key rules we used:
Fearsome enemy: -1 to all cohesion tests when loosing combat against them ( the cost of this is exactly like Drilled Troops, so the more expensive troops pay more, heavily armoured knights pay 3 extra points if they cause fear).
Skeleton troops: since we based our troops in the lists and rules covered in the previously mentioned system we tried to keep with that theme. Hence skeletons had the following characteristics:
Cost as average but the fight as poor ( re-roll 6 for to hits ), however the never take cohesion tests but when they take death tests they suffer an additional -2 to be added to any other mods. So for example when shot at they take the death tests at + 0 ( +2 for missile hits -2 for skeleton ). If they are within command range from an undead commander this commander adds +1 to the death roll, of course in combat the commander needs to be WITH the unit to apply this mod. We also added a death cart which accompanied the commander in chief and that gave the commander in chief a +2 mod rather than a +1 used just as above. Auto break was also like average troops representing the deterioration of the bond with the controller when the unit takes too many casualties.
War machines were converted a bit to have longer range and be more effective. Roughly the same dice but longer ranges, the cannons had the typical effective and long range, while catapults only had effective range but had a minimum range at which they could shoot. ( Undead catapults also caused fear when hitting enemies ).
The evil elves mounted on the dreadful velociraptors were treated like knights ( but they were the only unit of knights on the battle considered undrilled to represent that the raptors are more difficult to handle than horses). They had the additional nasty ability to disorganize enemies just like camels or elephants do with enemy cavalry but they disorganized both cavalry and infantry due to the terrible smell of the creatures, we costed this skill as 4 points ( 2 times the points for this skill for camels since that one only affects horses ). We also gave them the fearsome enemy attribute mentioned before. We did make them armoured knights and not heavily armoured knights because the raptors don’t have horse barding ( and also so as to keep in with the paper-scissors-rock concept of FOG so that they wouldn’t be the super unit, in fact the Noble Elven Knights defeated them in combat ).
In general Human troops were average while there elites were superior, elven troops where superior and their elites were Elite. The undead had all kinds of things, the skeletons which I already explained, the zombies which were regular poor troops and the ghouls fought as superior but took cohesion tests as poor ( and they were medium foot ).
Our eveil elves armies have lots of crossbowmen, but in the traditional rules we played the cross bow and the long bow were very similar so we replaced any reference in the rules for the cross bow. For us any time you say longbow we read longbow or crossbow.
Noble elves mostly had infantry units armoured or heavily armoured with offensive spear capability, or longbowmen swordsmen or even some marines regiments of mixed units defensive spears and longbow. They had their noble knights elite and a unit of shore patrol cavalry that were light spear cavalry. They had a small unit of elven jesters that were impact foot, medium foot and skilled swordsmen.
The tenebrous elves had mostly units armed with heavy weapon and crossbowmen ( equal to longbowmen) swordsmen. They had a unit of medium foot impact foot, bow*, swordsmen that was a regiment of female fanatics of the blood god.
They had their knights on raptors, one unit superior and one elite and they had some regular cavalry knights, plus a mounted unit of archers.
They had a war altar attached to the commander in chief effectively making him equivalent to an inspired commander.
The undead had what I mentioned before plus one units of skeleton knights and one of skeleton cavalry and the foot skeletons were either armoured offensive spear or heavy weapon.
Ok, now the quick report
I’ll call the flank you see on the top of this picture the eastern flank and the one in the bottom the western flank.
The unholly Alliance deployed the forces of undeath on the Eastern flank with their infnatry in the center, supported by zombies on the right plus the ghouls in the Woods and the knights and cav on the extreme flank.
On the western flank they deployed the tenebrous elves with their heavy weapon warriors in the center supported by the crossbowmen. To the woods they send the blood good female fantics and on the flank units and units of raptor and regular kngihts.
The terrain was rolled as normal and the forces of evil benefited of having a nice hill for their undead war machines.
The forces of good asigned the Eastern flank to the humans of the imperium. Their center held by pikemen, halberdiers and foot knights. They sent their medium foot impact foot religious fanatics to the woods and their knights to the flank. The cannons had no optimal position so they stay behind the woods in case anything got past the fanatics.
The noble elves took the western flank opposite to their vengeful cousins. They anchored their center on offensive spear worriors supported by the offensive spear guard.
To the woods they send the archers, the mixed weapon marines unit plus the elven jesters, and on the flank the noble elite knights and the cavalry.
And so they went for each other
Evil elves advance
Noble nights supported by marines face the raptor knights
The forces of the imperium commanded by a formidable champion.
Ready to clash
Undying knight vs Human knights
Elite elven raptor knights
The clash
The battle started well for the forces of evil. The undead were winning their combats, the humans had lost one knight unit already and the fanatics were being eaten by the gohuls.
The raptor knights had disrupted the noble knights elite while the blood good fanatics kept the elven jesters and archers in check in the woods.
However with time the tide turn, the human commanders worked extensively to keep the line steady by over and over recovering the cohesion. The second unit of knights managed to defeated the undead on the flank and the noble knights on the west flank were holding and actually starting to beat the elven raptor knights.
Eventually the raptor knights broke and the undead starting loosing too many bases in combat.
So the drainage of units on the forces of good stopped and suddenly the forces of evil found themselves at break level and the battle was over.
The game was great and everyone had fun. Now we have to convert more armies, orcs, ratmen, norse raiders, and eventually of course we will have to add magic and maybe some sort of heroes or similar.
Cheers,
Francisco
Thanks for sharing.
